The key to any good project is planning, especially when it comes to the prototyping phase. In Element D, Edison Co. took a step back to look at what was needed from their prototype. Beginning with a discussion of design sketches, and ending with long debate, a final design was chosen. Further detailed investigation into this design (featured below) revealed what Edison Co. would like to first test with an early prototype, but also some potential concerns with the design. By talking all of these issues out and coming up with a solid plan for their first design, Edison Co. was able to rally together, feeling prepared for the coming prototyping phases.

Parker's detailed designs included a paper lamp with light and bottom-mounted speaker that would hang above one's bed, simulating sunrise. He also designed a blind system that featured a speaker to play sound-based stimuli, and a light strip which could aid in the feeling of sunrise if the sun wasn't yet up or it was cloudy/foggy. A concern he detailed was a lack of knowledge in regards to blind mechanisms.

Focusing on alarm UI, Ely's drawings included front-featured buttons and for adjusting color and volume.

David's air-conditioned bed quickly became a favorite as he composed the detailed sketch. The idea of cooling down a bed and making the surrounding environment warm could certainly encourage someone to get up. He also favored a simple design involving a relay to toggle a bedside light. To further elaborate on this design, he sketched out the basic circuitry involved.

Two of Jace's designs fulfilled the traditional alarm clock space, with one having a cone-like shape and the other being a sphere. The sphere light design rested atop a speaker displaying the time, while the cone had a speaker embedded into the base, which transitioned into a light piece upon which the time would be displayed. A box design for a noise machine was also featured in Jace's notebook.

Edison Co.'s next step was to once again narrow down these nine designs to a top three selection. To do this, requirements had to be formulated and designs compared to user stories in a matrix, as discussed below.

User stories are a good metric to think about when it comes to design, but the company would need to refine them in order to fit into the upcoming decision matrix. Thus, the following 12 categories were formulated, taking the above-described user story requirements and fitting them into an assessable category.

The company used a decision matrix as a way of comparing different ideas to see what aspects of each design were effective in different types of categories. The list of features was referenced in the user stories that were created by the team and were used as a rubric to see what strengths and weaknesses each design presented. In other words, almost every rubric category was in some way linked to the user stories described above. The team's "User Stories and Competitive Features" are features the company decided on as a reflection of what the company wanted to see in the final product.

Noticeable patterns and outliers can be observed with the given graph resulting in many designs offering the same capabilities with minor pros and cons despite their drastic difference in design when comparing. Outliers among the scoring of designs are to be expected: each design ranges with different levels of success which is a common occurrence. What is most noticeable however is that generally, the majority of good designs would be scored high where other designs have also scored in. This can be used as a guide to compare and contrast different designs making it easier to see which are more effective in certain features than others. The most noticeable comparison is when a design ranks slightly higher than the rest making it from a good to great design. This is vital for the team to see what designs stand out above the rest.

Edison's top four designs were Parker's Paper Lamp design, and Blind design, and Ely's Design 1 - U.I.. Ely's first U.I's design would be a great compatibility app or tool to the final design choice acting as more of a compliment rather than a stand alone product. It is something that the team would like to see with the final product however it is more of an optional side project for the actual product. The second place ranking is Parker's Window Blind Design, making use of something that already exists in the majority of rooms making it also a marketable product. The window blinds would replace already existing binds and would open up more as more sunlight comes. This design will open the binds slowly and quietly using the sunrise as a natural light to wake the user up when the dawn breaks. If one wants to wake up in the early morning, a light bar is also incorporated into the design for customizability in wake up time. The final design is Parker's Paper Lamp, taking something that is already a familiar thing in today's world and giving it more functionality to participate in helping users to wake up. Similar to the blinds, it uses light based stimuli and sound based stimuli over time to help the user wake up. This paring of sound and light in a popular household object makes it a great candidate among all the rest of the design created. It should be noted that even though these are the highest scoring designs, it is different from the Final Selection of design we chose on.

Based on the analysis done in the matrix above, as a group, the team was able to select three designs to pursue further: Jace's cone alarm clock, David's bed-cooling alarm, and Parker's paper lamp design. Edison Co. had full faith that these options would be great choices and improvements on current wakeup methods. That said, a fourth "auxiliary" design, Parker's blinds, was also chosen in the case that the other solution's didn't meet a CAD requirement set out by Ms. Mason and PLTW. There was no doubt amongst the Edison Co. members that blinds would provide plenty of CAD work, so they could serve as a backup in case any other designs had to be cut.

Below Edison Co. has attached a slideshow reviewing the final design choices. The next step would be to select a singular "best" design to pursue for the rest of the project out of these four; a weighty decision indeed. The team feels that this slideshow serves as a good summary of the past few sections for the interested reader. Familiarity with the project is key in understanding Edison Co.'s prototype decision.

After mulling over the choices in the slideshow, Edison Co. chose the paper lamp as the design they would further pursue via prototyping. This design seemed to be the most feasible, requiring reasonable resources. There also wouldn't be an impossible amount of programming long-term, which is something that the team was concerned about. In terms of the design itself, there was also a lot to like. Most members favored the paper lamp design, agreeing that most of such lanterns looked elegant. All of the required stimuli would be available (light/sound) by the design without needing to wire into any preexisting fixtures (like ceiling lights). The paper lamp design also stood out when directly compared to its peers. While David's cooling bed was a cool idea, peer review presented potential concerns with marketing the design (who is going to buy a product to make their bed cold on a cold morning?). Everyone loved Jace's design for the alarm as well, but it seemed very difficult to manufacture. In order to further elaborate on the chosen design, Edison Co. has attached a basic schematic (Figure 5) below which will be used to construct the final prototype. This sketch was included to give the reader a good idea of Edison Co.'s direction with the chosen prototype.

Throughout the design process, Edison Co. has been committed to producing a high quality, functioning product. To ensure this, the team deliberated about what standards they should hold the product to, and what standards were realistic with respect to the company's limited resources. After much discussion, the features the team decided to judge were what they believed would give their users the most well rounded experience that was still within their technological limits. Unfortunately, it will never be possible to fulfill every user story and requirement. For example, a time-telling interface is a good example; especially in the first prototype, it will be nearly impossible to include a time display. Edison Co. realized that they would not be able to satisfy every stakeholder with their first prototype, and this was an example of one such feature that had to be resultantly excluded.

With prototype II Edison Co took a step away from functionality to make sure that one of the features. Prototype II was an opportunity to test the dimming capability of the alarm. David found an AC dimmer board that could control the voltage going to the light bulb. The board required a special input to dim the light called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). The board, however could not arrive in time to be used on the second prototype, so we tested the PWM port on the raspberry pi by dimming just a small led instead.

With prototype III Edison Co wanted all the features to be included and for it to be close to the final product. To do this the team added the AC dimmer that David found. They also wanted the product to look clean which meant only one cable coming out for power. To accomplish this, the team made a splitter to supply power to both the raspberry pi and to the dimmer for the light bulb. Because the pi required DC power instead of AC like the light, the team added a converter after the splitter. To give the prototype a finished look they put the electronics in a 3D printed box and added a new paper lamp to cover the light. The speaker was finally added using a micro USB to charge off the pi, and an AUX cable to receive the signal.